Samuel Sun Chung-tak, the general manager of Goodwood Motors, the brand's authorised dealer in Hong Kong and Macau, said it had received 15 pre-orders for the new vehicle.

Five or six of these customers were mainlanders who needed to travel to Hong Kong often, a similar number were corporate clients, and the rest Hongkongers, Sun said.

He expects more than 30 cars from this series to be sold, similar to the sales of last year's model.

Sun said the cooling of the economy might have slightly hit buyer enthusiasm, but there had been no huge impact on the luxury car market in Hong Kong yet.

"Buyers of these cars are wealthy, and some are mainlanders who want to replace their old cars," he said, pointing out that sales of cars so far this year were similar to those in the corresponding period a year ago.

Last year, Rolls-Royce sold about 70 cars in Hong Kong, Sun said. The carmaker delivered 3,538 cars to customers worldwide last year, up 31 per cent from 2,711 in 2010.

Harris said the mainland market remained robust and the slowdown in economic growth had not had a significant impact on Rolls-Royce. He said the carmaker would offset the slight softening in sales in the main cities by diversifying to others.

"Qingdao we went into early in the year. We are going to go into Nanning and Nanjing," Harris said.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Mainlanders 'cautious' on buying luxury cars